Amanda Palmer on Thinking About Art as Relationship vs. Product

American musician and artist at large Amanda Palmer recently released The Art of Asking, a book based on her 9 million + viewed TED Talk, which Palmer was asked to give after she became the first musician to break the $1 million mark on Kickstarter.

“The entertainment industry, reflecting the world at large, has been obsessed with the wrong question: How do we MAKE people pay for content? What if we started thinking about it the other way around: how do we LET people pay for content?” – Amanda Palmer

Palmer has been living and doing her art in the trenches for 15 years, but has “come to mainstream fame” very recently thanks to the three events I have mentioned above. I’ve finished reading her book couple of days ago, and I can’t help but noticing that it has opened up a whole new mindset in me, on a subtle but deep level, and I feel it’s important for me to share it, and point your attention towards it. Palmer is a polarized character for reasons that are pretty obvious: she goes against the flow, she does what most of us are terrified doing -being vulnerable and imperfect, she is a woman -people like to admire disruptive men (master! genius!) and get angry at disruptive women (b**** and else), and not only does she strive at doing it her way, but she also is smart and generous enough to share what she does, and she does it. That’s annoying for many.

One of the thing Amanda Palmer brings to the conversation is a shift in perspective when it comes to sharing content, and connecting with your crowd. In the excerpt below, she points out something that I think is fundamental, and that’s how we perceive Art as opposed as how we could perceive it:

Amanda Palmer on Thinking Art as Relationship vs. Product

“How do we create a world in which people don’t think of art just as a product, but as a relationship?As art returns to the commons and becomes more and more digital, uncaged, freely shareable, we need to figure out how people can sustain a new artistic ecosystem. The Internet is wonderful, and crowdfunding has opened up new worlds of possibility. There are terrific new tools, but they’re only tools. They’ll improve, they’ll go away, they’ll evolve, but even the perfect oils aren’t going to help us if we can’t face one another. If we can’t see one another. The entertainment industry, reflecting the world at large, has been obsessed with the wrong question: How do we MAKE people pay for content? What if we started thinking about it the other way around: how do we LET people pay for content?The first question is about FORCE. The second question is about TRUST. This isn’t just about music. It’s about everything.It’s hard enough to give fearlessly, and it’s even harder to receive fearlessly. But within that exchange lies the hardest thing of all: To ask. Without shame. And to accept the help that people offer. Not to force them. Just to let them.”

Some food for thoughts. If you haven’t yet, I recommend you to watch Amanda Palmer’s TED Talk: The Art of Asking, and if you find that interesting, to take it to the next level and read the book.

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Nathalie is a story fabricator and storyteller at heart. She created mentorless.com in 2011 to share content she thought useful to craft and nurture her storytelling and creative skills. To see more about what she does when she is not here, check www.nathaliesejean.com

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